Bullets flew across the room. Walker and Monty hunkered down behind a row of beaten up slot machines. Not that they weren’t good before this little fire fight, in fact, they were being used quite a bit. Until the bullets started flying. The pair of Ex-Illuminati agents had busted into the speakeasy quickly, the intent was a warning for one cell of the Family mafia. Frankie Paddaluchi had told the two about this operation, after claiming to know of a good safe house they could use as a base of operations for themselves.
Do this for me, an’ I’ll hook you two up, capisce?
They never really expected this to be easy, but they also weren’t expecting this kind of resistance. And then, they also weren’t expecting the Capo to be a woman.
Fancy was her name, with mannerisms that would appear as unseeingly for someone to be associating with the hired gunsels of the Maximus Family. But she was as deadly as she was refined. “I always find it interesting when brutes such as yourselves attempt to rest from my hands the territory and materials that I have worked so very hard to acquire,” she called out as she fired off a few rounds from her .38s. “Allow me to ask you gentlemen, what exactly do you believe that you were attempting to accomplish by an action such as this.”
“Can I squeeze off a few rounds an’ hope ta take her head off, mate,” Monty said in a hoarse whisper. “Her bloody limey’s the worst I’ve ever heard.”
Walker would have laughed had the situation not been so dire. “Way I hear it, Ma’am, you been puttin’ the squeeze on some honest folk ’round these parts. Somethin’ like that just ain’t right.”
“My word, someone with a heart of gold,” she called back with a laugh. “Such a thing as that is not commonly found in the Isles.”
“Whyn’t ya come here an’ I’ll show ya my heart o’ gold while I’m puttin’ a bullet through yer skull,” Walker suggested, a touch of venom in his voice. He looked to Monty as he heard the shuffling of feet. The shooting had died down, and gunsels were moving into a better position. Walker and Monty wordlessly positioned themselves.
The guns started blazing again as gunsels tried dropping in on them, only finding ripping death as the guns held by the gunslingers took them out quickly and effortlessly.
“She in that bunch?” Walker asked in a loud voice, knowing the answer, using his words to taunt.
“No, mate,” Monty replied, just as loud. “Dare say that’s a lotta Armani that just got wasted, though. Bloody shame, ya ask me.”
“Nah, it ain’t no shame. I’d rather go fer a good pair o’ Wranglers any day.”
Fancy shook her head as she listened to the words coming from the pair. “Dreadful, truly dreadful that such as yourselves would even consider yourself at such a station as we are.”
“Hell, Shiela. Ya boys’re dead, an’ we’re still breathin’. I would gather that we’re doin’ alright. Whaddya say, mate?”
“Hell, boy,” Walker replied with a chuckle. “I wager I’m gonna haveta agree with ya.” Walker’s voice had a smile in it, knowing right away, even before asking, what Fancy’s answer to his upcoming proposition would be. “Darlin’, tell ya what. Whyn’t ya make this easy on yerself. Just call it off, agree ta Heck’s terms an’ we’ll stop shootin’.”
Fancy laughed aloud as though she were on stage. The mere thought of such a suggestion was, in truth, laughable. “And where, pray tell, would the profit be for such a venture as that?”
“Well,” Walker replied with a smile. “Fer one, we’d stop usin’ so many bullets. I think Monty here missed a coupla times.”
“I bloody did not, mate,” he remarked with a voice that sounded angry, but he couldn’t help but smile as he spoke. He knew what Walker was doing. Wearing down the opponent with verbal jabs, and keeping them off guard. “Not like you hit one hundred percent…”
“Oh for!” Fancy finally cried out in dramatic voice and posture. “I give you… gentlemen the same offer you gave me. Give up, and I’ll allow you to crawl back to Heck, and receive whatever punish…”
Her words were cut off as she stared at the serrated blade that now protruded from her chest. She marveled at it for a while as she watched the blood begin to drip from the wound. And then she felt the arm wrap around her throat, and her body thrust backward, held fast by a muscular, yet lithe individual.
“Let me guess, Miss Fancy,” Marianne Wollcott whispered in Fancy’s ear. “A little girl from Oregon wished to be British, and far higher than her station. So, she joined with Don Maximus, first as a whore, and then worked close to the Don and secured herself some property. All the while pretending to be, oh so Shakespearean. How borish. Bloody colonial.” Marianne pulled the serrated blade back, ripping new wounds into the woman’s flesh. Fancy fell to the floor, tears streaming down her eyes.
“I could… I could have had everything…”
“No,” Marianne replied with a whisper, knowing full well that the life had ebbed from Fancy. “No you couldn’t. Because this was always your fate.” She surveyed the room as the gunsels looked to her. One held up his gun and Marianne replied by pointing her blade in his direction. “If any of you fools knew who you were dealing with, then all of you berks would have run scared well before this fight ever started. Your so called boss was an ignorant bitch. She deserved what she got.”
“Is she bloody dead?” Monty called out as he peeked over a crate. “Shite! Walker…” The gunslinger sat up, and peeked over the crate. What he saw was an amazing sight. The gunsels tossed down their weapons as they warily watched the woman who had just killed Fancy.
“Son of a bitch,” Walker whispered.
“Aren’t the Sisters sticking close to the Web?” Monty asked in a hoarse whisper.
“She ain’t a Knife,” Walker said with a smile as he pointed toward the woman. “The patches. They been ripped off. She cut an’ run, just like us.”
Marianne stood her ground as the gunslingers crawled out from their bunker, weapons trained on her. “This is not exactly the reception I had hoped for,” she said with a scowl.
“Then respect the fact that it ain’t usual procedure fer a member, whether ties ‘r cut ‘r not, o’ the Sisters come save us poor ass the Illuminati.”
“Ex-Illuminati, if I remember correctly,” Marianna replied.
“Bloody hell,” Monty said as he lowered his gun and looked to Walker. “She’s good.”
Walker nodded to the woman as he lowered his rifle. The frays on the patches weren’t new. They’d been ripped off a while ago. “What’s yer name, darlin’?”
“Marianne Wollcott,” she said quickly. “And if I might say, Operative Violet Rose, your reputation proceeds you. Your exploits are known amongst the members of the Sisters.”
“Why you quit?” he asked as he pointed to the torn patches.
Marianne looked down to her shoulder and then back to Walker. “Do you know of Stewart Industries?”
“‘Course I do,” Walker said with a scoff. “One o’ the biggest biogenetic an’ pharmaceutical companies in the western hemisphere. Have ta be an idiot not ta know. Why?”
“My sister, Maxine Wollcott, was the personal secretary for the CEO, Derrik Stewart,” Marianne explained, a cold look in her eyes. “A sect of the Sisters killed her when Mandrake attempted a very hostile take over of the company. Mandrake failed, and my sister paid the ultimate price. I left the Sisters as soon as I learned what happened.”
Walker nodded as Marianne gave her reasons. He studied her for a long while, sensing there was no disception at work. “Ya realize what me an’ Monty ‘re doin’?”
“Law in a lawless land?”
He smirked as he heard the answer. “Well, I guess ya do. Ya ain’t gettin’ no feelin’s o’ takin’ that pig sticker ta me ‘r Monty, an’ darlin’, we’ll get ‘long just fine.” He looked back to Monty and smiled. “Three o’ us is better ‘n two. What say we go back ta Heck an’ see what he’s got fer us in the form o’ property ta set up our shingle.”
Monty nodded and flashed a smile to Marianne. She merely responded with a nod, not falling for the perceived charm from the Aussie. But at least now, she had allies. And ones she had known of from her former life. Things in the William were about to get more interesting.
Turn the Page 